A fourth, in Key West.
Often, on his face, the same look: more grimace than smile, albeit shot through with a measure of forced goodwill.
Reaching the second floor, I moved along a hallway hung with numerous paintings in gilt frames, each marked by a plaque mentioning some experience our charge and his wife associated with its acquisition:
“Lovely cliffside dinner, Positano.”
“Catacomb tour, Paris, Mr. Pavarotti sang beautifully for us after dinner.”
“Guest of Senator Jepps and Maria in their fabulous desert home.”
At the end of the hall hung a double door of sturdy oak.
A familiar tan purse now appearing over my shoulder, Ipatted it (once, twice) as I would in the bygone days when about to embark on a challenging task, then passed through, knowing that my charge must be found on the other side.
—
And here he was.
A tiny, crimped fellow in an immense mahogany bed.
I was not too late.
Neither was I too early.
His wife, exhausted by care, slept fully dressed on a love seat near the bed. Her slippers lay on the floor, turned in toward each other as if being worn by some invisible pigeon-toed individual.
But she was not my concern.
My charge’s sleeping clothes were of silk, his initials monogrammed above the heart.
Moving closer, I entered the orb of his thoughts.
Within him abided a formidable stubbornness. A steady flow of satisfaction, even triumph, coursed through him, regarding all he had managed to do, see, cause, and create, especially given his humble origins.
I scanned for doubts regarding things he had done or left undone; things he might have said but had not; mistakes to which he had not yet fully admitted, any of which might keep him from attaining that state of total peace so to be desired at this juncture.
And found nothing, or nearly nothing.
He was as sure of himself as ever a charge of mine had been.
Even now, as the terrible illness overtook him.
I felt again the old, familiar, generalized fondness:
Before me lay a person who had not willed himself into thisworld and was now being taken out of it by force, the many subsystems within him that had always given him so much satisfaction shutting down agonizingly. Soonitwould come, accompanied by disbelief and panic, and he would find himself on the wrong side of a rapidly closing door, everything he had ever known and loved out of reach, overthere,beyond it.
At such moments, I especially cherished my task.
I could comfort.
I could.
—
I moved to the window to energize and activate that part of myself from which I comforted, by glimpsing out indulgently at the glory of all-that-is.
To my surprise, down below, near the statue of the golden dog, stood one of our ilk, looking up.
